Daily Thunder.com

• New ESPN Power Rankings are out and OKC is up two spots at No. 26:  ”Halfway through the schedule, OKC can finally look at the standings without cringing. The Thunder rolled into 2009 with a mere four victories, but check out the L10 column now: 5-5 in the past 10 games is no misprint.” Also, the fans have the Thunder No. 25 and John Hollinger puts OKC at No. 26 as well.

• 48 Minutes of Hell talks about the rumored Nick Collison to the Spurs deal: “Right now, it looks as if only Memphis is likely to be in the same cap space neighborhood as OKC. But how much money is Michael Heisley willing to spend in a bad economy? In other words, would Sam Presti want cash to spend in a buyer’s market? And in a year when the competition for talent is scarce? More specifically, does Presti want to add a Carlos Boozer or David Lee–with money enough left for, say, Zaza Pachulia–to his core of Durant, Green and Westbrook? This might be the perfect storm of opportunity for the ambitious young GM. Turning Nick Collison into Carlos Boozer would be a neat party trick. On the court Collison is an ideal fit for San Antonio, but is he worth jeopardizing their 2010 cap space? I’m not sure. Perhaps, there is a different way to ask the question. Are the Spurs playing for championships now or later? Collison is not a bit player. His presence would immediately shore up the frontline.”

• Joe Smith prefers to stay with the Thunder: “I like the young fellas and what they bring to the table,” Smith said of the Thunder. “A lot of people want to chase that ring and things like that. But when you have a group of guys like this giving it their all every night, I don’t get involved in stuff like that. We dug this hole together. We have to fight out of this hole together.”

• OKC is trying to get over the nine-win hump and that means the players only take days off when Scott Brooks makes them: “Interim coach Scott Brooks, who took over when P.J. Carlesimo was fired after a 1-13 start, believes his team is “still learning how to win” but has improved because of an unwillingness to quit despite a hopeless 3-29 start. After the team returned from a recent overtime loss at New Jersey at 3 a.m., he decided not to hold practice later that day. When he showed up hours later, there were nine players at the practice gym. “I needed a day off. I’m like, `Get out of here,”‘ Brooks said. “We have a team full of that. They’re young guys that want to get better,” he added. “They’re thirsty, they’re hungry, they want to enjoy this league, but they enjoy it by working hard.”

• Ian Thompson on OKC’s chances of re-signing Kevin Durant: “The timing here is interesting. The owners will seek a new collective bargaining agreement with the players in 2011. Under the current terms, Durant will be, at most, a restricted free agent, enabling the Thunder to match any offer he receives. Unless he has an unexpected falling-out with team management, he won’t be going anywhere. It could be in his best interests to sign an extension with Oklahoma City under the terms of the current agreement, because the new CBA (to be negotiated in 2011-12) is expected to be less accommodating to the players, who are likely to face shorter contracts with smaller annual raises.”

Box Score

What else can I say about this game that is more to the point than “too much Dwayne Wade”?

Forty eight minutes of deep shooting brilliance by the Heat, offset by mini runs and mini slumps by the Thunder. This game never really seemed like a game that the Thunder were going to win. It was close for most of the first quarter until the Heat took the lead at 22-19 late in the first, and never relinquished the lead.

The Thunder did many of the things that they’ve done successfully in the last 9 games, like getting to the line quite a bit, and win the battle of the boards, yet still the Thunder turned the ball over too much, and couldn’t seem to do anything about guarding the perimeter. The Heat just let fly from deep all night long, and the Thunder could only seem to counter that with average field goal shooting and a lot of free throws. The Heat launched 21 three pointers and hit 11 of them (52%). It’s tough to win countering that with one point free throws.

Tonight’s game was a bit unusual even for the the Heat. The Heat go to the line an average of 23 times per night. Against the Thunder, they didn’t bother with attacking the rim too often and only got to the line 14 times. Dwayne Wade averages 10 free throws alone, yet only got 2. He had twice as many three point attempts as he did free throw attempts. He also averages 21 field goal attempts, but tonight had 28. Why attack the basket? That’s a lot of work, and you get knocked around when you get there. It’s much easier to jack up shots if you can make them like Wade does. Keep Reading…

vs.

Miami Heat (21-18) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (8-33)
Sunday, Jan. 18
Ford Center
Oklahoma City, OK
6:00 PM CST

TV: KSBI-52 (Cox 9)
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM)

View from the other side: Peninsula is Mightier

We all know what’s on the line tonight. And we all know it’s more than possible. Over the past two and half weeks, Oklahoma City has played its best basketball of the season and beaten two pretty good teams.

Much like the last two solid teams the Thunder has beat (the Jazz and the Pistons, if you somehow inexcusably forgot), the Heat struggle away from home. On the road, Miami is 9-12 compared to 12-6 at home. And the Thunder are pretty stingy at home, winning four of six at the Ford and six of their eight wins have come at home.

Obviously, what OKC needs to do tonight is rebound, take care of the ball and continue to play tough defense. The Thunder have a +73 rebounding margin over the last five and in seven of their eight wins, have outrebounded their opponent. And the Heat aren’t really a great rebounding squad, ranking 23rd in the league in boards.

OKC matches the Heat really well, with Desmond Mason getting the unenviable assignment of Dwayne Wade. But other than that, you got to like Russell Westbrook on Mario Chalmers, Kevin Durant on Shawn Marion, Jeff Green on Udonis Haslem and Nenad Krstic/Nick Collison on Joel Anthony.

Let’s get No. 9 tonight and move on with our lives. And you look at the upcoming schedule, and there’s winnable games against Golden State, the Clippers, the Nets and Memphis coming up. Not to get ahead of ourselves, but if the Thunder continue to play as my dad would say, “Want-t,” they can keep winning.

What wins basketball games?

I could ramble on and on, but smarter men than I have addressed this question, so why reinvent the wheel. Dean Oliver, author of “Basketball on Paper”, and a former consultant to the Sonics and current consultant with the Denver Nuggets has done all the statistical work and he breaks down what wins games to four factors, with their relative weights in parenthesis:

1. Shoot a high field goal percentage (10).
2. Do not commit turnovers (5-6).
3. Get offensive rebounds (4-5).
4. Get to the foul line frequently (2-3).

Teams that consistently win basketball games do at least three of these things well. If you don’t shoot well, you better do the other three.  Oliver says these factors should be considered on the basis of the number of a team’s possessions compared to its opponent, not in absolute terms. Keep Reading…

Since Dec. 31st, the Oklahoma City Thunder are playing better than .500 basketball. After an 89-79 win over Detroit, OKC (8-33) now has won two in a row. That’s right, TWO IN A ROW. Digest that for a minute. Swish it around, let it marinate.

How about more — when Oklahoma City left Detroit after a tough last-second loss three weeks ago, the Thunder was 3-27. Now? Eight and thirty-three. One off the 1972-73 Sixers. Think anyone’s checking ESPN’s little tracker anymore? The Thunder are 5-5 in their last 10 and have won three out of four. And also, not the worst team in the league anymore in terms of wins — OKC is now tied with Washington and the Clippers. One more: After starting 0-20 against plus .500 teams, OKC’s first winning streak came against two teams a combined 13 games over.

The first seven minutes of the fourth sealed the deal. How? Because OKC started the last frame on a 15-0 run and Detroit (22-16) didn’t score until there was 6:13 left. The Pistons were ice cold, missing their first eight shots of the fourth. Detroit was outworked all night, evidenced by the 52-35 rebounding edge in favor of the Thunder. Here’s a crazy stat: Detroit didn’t grab an offensive rebound until there was under four minutes left in the third quarter. Overall, OKC pulled down 14 offensive boards to the Pistons’ five. Over the Thunder’s last five games, they’re a +73 on the glass. As Brian Davis would say, wow.

And think about this one — the Pistons missed five straight free throws at one point in the third, but get this: Detroit was 3-8 from the line overall. That’s it. Three for eight. And it wasn’t like Detroit just shot the ball poorly or turned it over a ridiculous amount. The Pistons hit 46 percent and only gave it up nine times. No Piston scored more than 18 points. The pace wasn’t even that slow tonight, but OKC’s defense was great, giving up a season-low 79 points. In the second half, Detroit scored just 33 points. Wow, again.

You look at the box score and you see Jeff Green’s miserable shooting night going an awful 2-16 from the field and you’d think he didn’t have the best game. But as far as I’m concerned, he’s the player of the night. He was huge on the glass, grabbing 14 rebounds, he dished five assists and he was an absolute force defensively. Look at Green’s +/- tonight, an awesome +17. And he wasn’t visibly frustrated with his poor shooting night. He kept working, kept driving and kept playing hard. That’s a wonderful thing.

Speaking of the +/-, the bench guys were great as Earl Watson had a +12, Chris Wilcox had a +13 and Kyle Weaver a +10. Great production from the pine tonight, especially from Wilcox who had 17 and 11. And Desmond Mason had 11 and 11 from his shooting guard position and played excellent defense on Rip Hamilton.

Russell Westbrook finally had a rookie night. About dang time. He was 2-10, scored five, had six assists and played just 27 minutes, but he was actually really good. Because the Pistons’ offensive catalyst, Rodney Stuckey, didn’t score until there was under a minute left in the third and just had three points overall. But how about that little head-fake, fake pass, up-and-under he pulled on Rasheed Wallace in the third quarter? Or that near monster dunk over the entire Pistons team toward the end of the game? Two sweet moves from RW, even on a bad offensive night.

Here’s how good OKC was as a team tonight – it’s been six paragraphs and I haven’t even mentioned Kevin Durant and his electric 32-point offensive showcase. He scored 12 in the first, four in the second, 10 in the third and six in the fourth. He was 14-21 from the field and 2-3 from downtown. He grabbed six rebounds and only turned it over three times. In other words, maybe his most complete line of the season. But one thing that impressed me more than anything was a sequence late in the second quarter. Westbrook drove and kicked out to Durant who was at the top of the key wide open for three. Tayshaun Prince was closing on him and instead of taking a good look, Durant swung the ball to Green in the corner who was open and knocked down the triple. KD has got it — he’s a superstar and an elite scorer, but he understands being a teammate first. He had his entire game working, but he didn’t force anything. It came to him and he made it look easy. I don’t care what he says — he deserves to be an All-Star.

This is the team we thought we were going to see. Competitive, gritty and a group of youngsters that are talented, but raw. The NBA season is definitely a marathon — these types of games happen for contenders. The Pistons were flat and got outplayed and outworked. But that doesn’t make it any less awesome. Especially when at one point we were looking at a 1-16 team, then 2-24, then 3-29. Now they’ve won two in a row and have another winnable home game against Miami — another plus .500 team. And one more gives OKC, (deep breath), win No. 9. That’s right.

OKC gets the Heat Sunday night at 6 p.m. at the Ford.

vs.

Detroit Pistons (22-15) vs. Oklahoma City Thunder (7-33)
Friday, Jan. 16
Ford Center
Oklahoma City, OK
7:00 PM CST

TV: FS Oklahoma (Cox 37, HD 722)
Radio: WWLS The Sports Animal (98.1 FM, 640 AM)

View from the other side: Piston Powered

Another chance at revenge. I’m not even going to say anything about starting a win-streak, uh, nevermind.

Everybody knows it, but I’ll say it: The Pistons better come into the Ford Center ready to play. The record says 7-33, but you better treat the Thunder like a 33-7 team or you’re going to walk out with your tail between your legs and your beat writers will be saying things like, “Embarrassing loss for Detroit to the worst team in the history of man,” and “If there’s one thing Detroit can take with them, besides a humiliating loss to a bunch of kindergartners, it’s the dust and cow poop that’s all over Oklahoma.” But seriously, the point is there — bring your lunch pale to Loud City or be prepared to get rolled.

You’d assume the Thunder’s confidence would be off the charts and tonight they’ll come in fired up and clicking. But I actually fear that the opposite may happen. I could see a flat team, feeling some sort of weird sense of entitlement coming out and playing bad ball. The thing about OKC is that while confidence is one of the best things in all of sport, second to that is playing with a chip on your shoulder. The Thunder need to realize they haven’t earned anything yet and haven’t won anything yet. They need to add confidence to the disrespect they’ve felt and play their hearts out for 48 minutes and see what happens.

But while I worry about that, I trust Scott Brooks will have them ready and will explain this to them. After all, he is an NBA coach. I’m sure he’s been over that little theory before. But as for matchups, OKC matches Detroit well. As we know, the last time the two teams played it took a buzzer beater to down the Thunder in Detroit. The Thunder has been playing well, and especially well at home. Russell Westbrook, well, no need to talk about what he’s doing well. He’s just been awesome. He can handle anything Allen Iverson/Rodney Stuckey has and more than likely, Westbrook will be able to get to the rim and get his shot whenever he wants it.

Such a huge key is how the three Thunder stars play. Against the Jazz, Westbrook had 22, Jeff Green 23 and Kevin Durant 21. Add in Nick Collison and Nenad Krsitc’s solid play and there’s a formula to get a win. But against a good team loaded with good players, you can’t have just a couple parts functioning. Things need to be clicking for the role players and the stars.

Depending on how you view sports trends, you can look at this game two ways:
1) The Pistons have an eight-game winning streak over the Thunder franchise.
2) The Pistons have lost three straight, with the last two being against Charlotte (six-game winning streak over the Bobcats snapped) and Indiana (eight-game winning streak snapped).

It’s been four years since Detroit has lost four in a row, which leads one to believe the Pistons would play well tonight. They’ve lost two games against sub-par opponents and obviously don’t want to continue that against the Thunder. But then again, maybe the Pistons are in a lull and this is a good time to catch them. Like the Jazz, the Pistons are mediocre on the road, winning just 10 of 19 away from Detroit. Two wins in a row (crap, I said it) would be nice, but two wins in a row against a couple of playoff teams would be really nice.

UPDATE: Just came out that Nick Collison is questionable for tonight because of a stomach virus and Rasheed Wallace missed the Pistons’ shootaround today because of illness.